Category Archives: Innovation and Reform

It wasn’t so long ago I pointed you to the results of an Association of American Educators (AAE) member survey to drive home the point that teacher opinion is far from monolithic. Well, the good folks at AAE have done it again, releasing a snapshot of members’ perspectives on a number of school reform issues. Not only do strong majorities back a variety of different school choice programs, but they also show themselves to be supportive of policies that would enhance their own professional options:

Back in early December my Education Policy Center friends helped put on a State Capitol event, laying out ideas for dramatic “backpack funding” reforms that need to be at the heart of this year’s keystone school finance debates. We’ve been waiting awhile now to see what Senator Johnston’s “Grand Bargain” legislation might look like. I can get impatient about these things. As Ed News Colorado reports, the time is drawing near, but legislative leaders are proceeding deliberately:

Thanks to Ed News Colorado, my attention today was brought to an interesting Education Week story by Stephen Sawchuk that says colleges of education are graduating too many elementary school teachers: Finally, the tendency toward oversubscription in the elementary fields is also a function of candidates’ interest, said Amee Adkins, an associate dean of the college of education at Illinois State University, in Normal, and the president of the Illinois Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. “It’s content material they were less intimated [sic] by,” she said, ticking off a list of reasons. “Kids are cuter when they’re little. And it’s probably when [the candidates] remember having the most fun in school.” The Education Intelligence Agency’s Mike Antonucci has been on the case of “teacher shortage alarmists” for quite awhile now, a much needed service. But I don’t think that until now there has ever been evidence so compelling to shoot down the alarmists’ case.

You know how much I have to restrain myself when it comes to using the “it’s for the kids” mantra, so I simply couldn’t resist quickly bringing your attention to some important new insights from local pension system analyst Joshua Sharf. With the tongue-in-cheek title “PERA – It’s All for the Kids,” he paints full-color pictures showing that dollars per student spent on the state retirement system have been growing dramatically, the heaviest burdens borne by taxpayers. Is it any wonder why many school districts might be feeling the pinch? Does it make sense now why I told you a few months back that a better solution than yelling at TABOR is fixing PERA?

If a person asked why he is doing something gives the response, “Because everyone else is doing it,” that usually won’t pass muster. If that person happens to be 5 years old, even if an accomplished blogging prodigy, you’d cut them a little slack… right? Today, it seems like everyone out there has something to say about the Gates Foundation’s newly released findings from the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project. Ed News Colorado’s Julie Poppen highlights a study conclusion that meshes very well with Colorado’s SB 191 teacher evaluation reform: “Our data suggest that assigning 50 percent or 33 percent of the weight to state test results maintains considerable predictive power, increases reliability and potentially avoids the unintended negative consequences from assigning too-heavy weights to a single measure,” the much-awaited MET study found. The implementation of SB 191 by school districts looms large across Colorado’s education policy landscape. Local boards are empowered to stop the “Dance of the Lemons” with ineffective teachers, and to put in place compensation systems that truly reward performance. By and large, these represent positive developments. But does the new Gates study really validate the law’s formula that 50 percent of teacher evaluations should be […]

Run for cover, and hold onto your wallets! Tomorrow marks the beginning of the first session of the 69th Colorado General Assembly. At first, I thought about just re-posting last year’s pre-session warning. Yet while there may be some similarities between 2012 and 2013, it would end up being a lazy thing to do, and less than accurate to boot. At the risk of being repetitive, though, I first will point readers to the legislative preview by Ed News Colorado’s Todd Engdahl. He notes that: The question of school finance is expected to overshadow all other education issues. Democratic Sens. Mike Johnston of Denver and Rollie Heath of Boulder are crafting a plan that would significantly overhaul the school funding formula – contingent on subsequent voter approval of new revenues for schools. A big looming question then is just how significant the proposed school finance changes will be. If they’re not pushing toward real student-centered backpack funding — as Senator Johnston and others discussed last month at a packed Capitol event — then selling voters on a tax hike will become that much more difficult. While the statehouse shouldn’t be as consumed with K-12 education issues last year, Engdahl does […]

Not too long ago I was telling you about new information out grading Colorado schools’ performance. But how is Colorado doing in applying policies that promote an excellent, equitable and efficient education system? Today the national group Students First released its first-ever State Policy Report Cards. How did Colorado do? Depends how you look at it. When you look at our ranking among the states, it makes you feel pretty good:

“Nobody has figured out how to mass produce high-quality, cost-effective schools,” PBS correspondent John Merrow explained on a televised feature last week about the successful Rocketship Education public charter school network. Thanks to Joanne Jacobs for bringing to my attention the interesting 9-minute video about how to replicate an innovative and successful education model:

Last week a couple of my Education Policy Center friends had the privilege of visiting an innovative Denver charter school that’s serving kids close to my age: Rocky Mountain Prep. This new school is following in the footsteps of successful forebears that serve high-need student populations — placing a foundational emphasis on high expectations with competent, caring and dedicated teachers. But at the same time Rocky Mountain Prep is also pioneering a blended learning model for delivering instruction to enhance the number of students who can be effectively reached. Currently, the southeast Denver school serves students in pre-kindergarten through 1st grade, but is slated eventually to go through 8th grade. Classrooms use a rotation model in which some students at a given time will be learning on specialized software (including Dreambox), receiving small group instruction, or more focused attention on areas identified where they are struggling. Special grant funding enables a teaching apprentice, rather than an aide, to join the classroom’s lead instructor. The idea enables class sizes to be a little larger while maximizing the impact on student learning during these important formative years.

I love anniversaries, don’t you? Exactly one year ago I commented on a front-page Denver Post story documenting the use of taxpayer-funded union release time in Colorado school districts. Without taking a comprehensive look, the Post reporter found $5.8 million in subsidies to teacher unions. So on this not-quite-historic 1st anniversary, it’s interesting to see a new video posted of a recent interview with one of the union officers paid by taxpayers to take leave from the classroom. In the Spotlight on Corruption production, the District Twelve Educators Association (DTEA) official discloses some of what she does: